7 Components of Good Branding

- February 11, 2016

A company’s branding is one of the most important components of their marketing strategies. Without a good, strong brand, the company is less likely to find the success they are hoping for, and more likely to struggle to build lasting, reliable relationships with their clients and customers.

If you find that your company’s brand is not as specific as it should be for achieving the success you want, it’s time to rethink your strategy. Before you can begin deciding what colors to use or how your logo should look, you need to get to the basis of why you’re doing business.

Here are the necessary brand components you must nail down before you can recognize branding successes.

1. Purpose

Your purpose explains why your company is in business. This doesn’t mean it outlines the specific product or service your company provides, but rather how your product or service can better your customer or client’s life.

While there are definitely some brands whose sole purpose is to make money, the ones that see the most success are the brands who want to make money while doing something to better their community or world.

2. Emotion

The story behind your branding needs to play into the emotions of your clients or customers. Even just the name of your company or an image of your product should evoke some kind of emotional response.

This kind of emotional connection to your brand could include anything from feeling as if your customer is a part of a group or if you’ve lifted a bit of weight from their shoulders. Whatever your level of emotional connectedness may be, customers will be willing to pay more for your product if they feel drawn to it.

3. Consistency

You cannot possibly have a strong brand if your products, images, logos, or other seemingly small details are not consistent.

If you look at your favorite brand’s website, social media pages, or products, they all probably look as if they belong to the same family. There might be slight differences here and there that allow for a little creativity, but more or less, everything is consistent.

Develop a strong package and branding rules and maintain them throughout your entire strategy.

4. Employee Connection

Consistency continues into each and every employee’s approach to how business is done. This means that all of your employees are using specified voices, quotes, and slogans when interacting with customers and clients.

Companies with strong brands allow their clients and customers to know exactly what they are getting into before they even begin engaging with an employee.

5. Flexibility

Although you want to remain consistent in everything you do, it is also important to show that you can change and adapt with the times. What worked 10 years ago probably isn’t going to work today, and if you have marketers who are unwilling to learn the new tricks of the trade, your brand is going to suffer.

Keep your messaging, ideas, and imagery consistent across your pages and products, but be sure to always adopt to what is going around in the business world. Slight changes to stay relevant are always okay.

6. Keep Your Eye on The Competition

If you are competing with another brand for the same customers, you’re going to need to know what strategies they are implementing and what road they are taking to get customer attention.

This can be beneficial in many ways, including not needing to waste money or time on tactics that didn’t work favorably for the competition.

While watching the competition, it is important to remember to not follow their every move. Implement your own branding strategies but keep your competition in the corner of your eye.

7. Loyalty

The strength of a company’s brand relies on its loyalty. You may be able to catch the eye of potential customers and clients, but can you keep it?

Showing your customers that you care about them is crucial to developing a successful brand. When customers support you, you can develop a deeper brand character for even more branding benefits.

Now that you know the most basic components of brand loyalty, you can revisit your branding package. Consider the necessary inclusions for developing a successful brand and create an image deeper than a series of colors or a cool logo. With a powerful brand behind your company, you’ll be able to reach greater levels of success.